Battery Packs Recognized

[BillP]

I have two 3000 XL (SUA3000RMXL3U) and two SURTD5000RMXLT UPSs. They both batteries attached - SUA48RMXLBP3U and SURT192RMXLBP3U respectively.

I have two questions... How many external batteries do I enter in the UPS management cards for these external batteries to get the correct runtime?

Also, how do I know the UPS's actually see the external batteries correctly? I find it a bit amazing that these UPS's cant automatically detect external batteries. Lets say I entered more batteries than I have. Would the UPS not do its job then? Would it just power everything off because it doesnt know how many batteries are attached?

Message was edited by: mattpayne59

[BillP]

hi

with the SUA3000RMXL3U, the SUA48RMXLBP3U's each count as (1) external battery pack. so if you only have one on each UPS, just enter 001 in each network management card.

with the SURTD5000RMXLT, each SURT192RMXLBP3U also counts as (1) external battery pack.

neither of the two models you have count their internal batteries as an external battery pack as some of APC's other UPSs do.

adjusting the battery pack count only updates the runtime in the software. as long as the DC power cable is connected (and present on the UPS's DC bus) it will use that power to provide power to the load while operating on battery. if you dont update the battery pack count, the only thing that will suffer is anything that is based on the runtime remaining - for example if you had a server shutdown after such and such amount of runtime, the UPS wont be aware of the extra runtime and the server may shutdown prematurely (if you have PowerChute software set up on the server and set up for graceful shutdown).

hope this helps

[BillP]

This does help. Two more quick questions though.

If I set it to 2 by accident and I only have one battery, then Powerchute will have the wrong information and wont gracefully shut down my servers, right? Interestingly enough when I called APC tech support they said for the 5000 unit each battery pack was 2 external batteries. Since the runtime didnt line up with their chart I thought it was 1 anyway.

Also, I still am not sure how I tell that I have the batteries hooked up properly and they are being recognized by the UPS. If I set this value to 1, do I really have no way to verify that it is actually working?

Thank you for your help.

[BillP]

do you have a case number from APC support? I personally have confirmed what I told you is true so I am not sure why you were told the wrong thing...it is also in the user manual for the unit/battery pack. the old SURT5000XLT (no D in the part number) counted its internal battery packs as one external battery pack but the SURT192XLBP's never counted as two battery packs each.


about the batteries being connected properly, i guess there really is no way to test it besides doing a calibration. you just want to make sure the DC connector from the battery pack is securely connected but the only other way to test it is doing a calibration i guess.


in regards to the runtime being wrong if you add too many battery packs, overall, i'd have to say that it wouldnt affect anything. i thought about this more. even if you dont add the correct number of battery packs or you add too many, if you still set the server to shutdown after 5 minutes for instance, the total amount of runtime doesnt matter. the UPS will know it had been on battery for 5 minutes and signal powerchute to shutdown. the UPS will also signal a low battery to the powerchute client no matter what the UPS thinks the total runtime is. so all in all, this shouldnt be a problem. i'd have to test out and confirm if the UPS can adjust its runtime while its ON battery even if the battery pack count is incorrect. i dont think it can but im not 100% sure.

[BillP]

a software calibration basically discharges the unit down to 10-20% battery charge and then charges back up. after doing that, the UPS is able to update its runtime after it realizes how long it can run on battery with a certain load percentage. when the UPS is online, the runtime estimate is only that - an estimate. when on battery, the runtime is very accurate so a discharge during the calibration should bring the estimate and accurate value close together, if not to the same value. as mentioned, a calibration deeply discharges the batteries so this should only be done one to two times a year at most. a deep discharge due to a power outage also can help adjust this value too so thats why you dont want to do this procedure very frequently and shorten the life of the battery.

yes, you can run a software calibration while powering a load. as mentioned, the software will only drop the charge down between 10 and 20%.

[BillP]

I did not get a case # from the call unfortunately. The lady definitely had no idea what she was talking about. She kept putting me on hold and having to check with other people and still got it wrong.

How exactly does a calibration test it? I just ran one on one of my UPSs and it says it passed successfully. Now what? Where do I actually check the results?

I assume it is ok to run this test whlie the UPS is powering a load?

[Anonymous user · Accepted solution]

I have a similar question for the Smart-UPS RT 8000 RM XL. 

That model has all of the batteries external and we have 2 packs (4 batteries in each unit).

Do we count for per pack (i.e 1 or 2) or by batteries (4 or 😎 under the external battery section of the UPS (within GUI).